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Wade Roush writes "21, the top movie at the box office last weekend, has everyone talking about the real identities of the MIT blackjack team members fictionalized in the movie and in the 2002 book, Bringing Down the House, on which the film is based. Last week a number of stories pointed to former MIT student and Las Vegas resident John Chang as the model for the Micky Rosa character, the club mastermind played in the movie by Kevin Spacey. But Boston-area Internet entrepreneur and real estate developer Bill Kaplan is saying that if anyone is the basis for Micky Rosa, it's him. Turns out Kaplan now battles the "e-mail churn" problem as CEO of Newton, MA, startup FreshAddress, which helps companies correct the outdated e-mail addresses in their customer databases."

It's just playing the game the way a scientist should, not the typical "mystical" way that most people do.

Maybe in a hundred years "luck" will be an outmoded concept and gambling will been seen properly as "entertainment" but until then, most every idiot who goes to a casino is a mystical moron who thinks he's going to get lucky and win.

The game in this case is the system, but more broadly it would be the Casino and it's practice of looking out for, and of banning card counters. These pros know it's a game (not just the Game of Blackjack), but a game of out-witting the house detectives. I don't see any redundancy here.

I will in fact "spell" it out to you. The irony lies in the term itself, and as it is applied here to card counters. The irony is also apparent in the fact that the casino's have already "gamed" the system against it's customers (from a profit perspective), especially considering that they can and will legally ban anybody whom they feel wins too much money.

The concept of "Gaming the system" is itself ironic (I hope I don't have to explain why):

Gaming the System means, simply, using the rules, policies and procedures of a system against itself for purposes outside what these rules were intended for.

Not according to the Casino's, because if they find you doing this they will ask you to leave. So that's why most people in Casino's don't do this, because they have already been banned or don't want to go through the effort.

And BTW, Blackjack is fun for most people; nothing really too mystical here for me when I play it (on rare occasions). Granted their are fools who may think otherwise and lose their lifesavings in turn.

And BTW, Blackjack is fun for most people; nothing really too mystical here for me when I play it (on rare occasions). Granted their are fools who may think otherwise and lose their lifesavings in turn.

The right way is to use a printed table with Perfect Strategy (minimize losses), in Vegas (free drinks!) at the Wynn (fairly small house advantage), outside (fresh air) at the European-sunbathing (boobies!) pool, where there are only 12 tables (see cocktail waitress often = more free drinks!) that are right next to the bar (cocktail waitress travel distance is short = more free drinks!).

The wrong way would be to play "what feels lucky" (maximize losses) in Council Bluffs, IA (no free drinks) on a 6/5 blackjack table (big house advantage) on the floor (stale air, no boobies, senior citizens galor, annoying slot machine sounds, and infrequent cocktail waitress appearances.)

The one downside to the Wynn is you can't get to the pool unless you're a guest, and the rooms there are rather steep (but very very nice). You can mitigate that by losing a bunch of money when you play and then the rooms are not so steep anymore.

Go to a blackjack table and throw down $80,000. When they've finished giving you your chips, play 2 hands of $5 then go to the cash out window. Watch as they give you a free room for being a "high roller".

The "right way" is to stay away from normal play. The New England casinos run various games, and when the tables are slow, they'll announce a change in the odds at a particular table to draw in players. You switch tables and play _there_, where the odds are better, and it helps your card counting quite a lot.Did the books mention the blonde, big-buted Mormon girl Wendy form Senious House dorm at MIT who was on the team? She would wear slinky outfits and wildly changed hair colors and distract the pit bosses

Exactly right. It's pretty difficult these days to win with card counting, especially with six deck shoes, infinite shuffles, or two deck games that only deal out 2 hands before reshuffling.

The casinos are not going to kick you out for dumb luck, and they aren't going to kick you out if you seem to be card counting but aren't doing it very well. On the other hand, they will kick you out if they see perfect play (and remember, everything you do at the table is seen by the eye in the sky. It's not just the pit bosses who are reviewing your play).

Of course, it might have changed since I used to play a lot. Back in '00-'01 I'd go to Las Vegas at least twice a month, and I'd count cards. I wasn't perfect (I'd lose the count every so often), but I still generally won more than I lost. No big amount; it was just for fun.

Only once did they say anything, and that was a night at the Tropicana where I turned $80 into $1,300 (playing flawlessly, and getting a good chunk of luck to boot) Around 4am, the casino was mostly empty, and the pit boss seemed very interested in my table. I could see him looking at me and talking on the phone to . . . someone.

Eventually he came up to me and suggested that I go back to my room and get some sleep. That was all they said. I don't know if that really meant anything or not, but I was smart enough to get the hint. I said "You're right. I'm very tired", blacked out and left.

But at the level I've played at, I've never seen any real repercussions from the house. I've played a number of times at the Tropicana since then, and nobody has said anything to me.

Maybe in a hundred years "luck" will be an outmoded concept and gambling will been seen properly as "entertainment" but until then, most every idiot who goes to a casino is a mystical moron who thinks he's going to get lucky and win.

Well, counting cards is already an obsolete method of trying to beat the system, because most good casinos use a combination of multiple decks of cards, and computer controlled shuffling machines to make it a futile effort.

I'm not cynical towards gambling, I'm cynical towards idiots. If you have a system and it "works" for you, good on ya. If you blow half your paycheck every week waiting for your "luck" to change then you're an idiot.

This can't be serious, right? This is Slashdot, we're all nerds here. A lot machine is nothing more than a random number generator matched up against a win table.Completely made up numbers, but say you bet $1. The rngs spits out a number say from 1 to 10,000,000. If it hits 10,000,000 on the dot, you win the $1 million jackpot. If it hits 9,999,995-9,999,999 you win the 2nd best prize. If it hits between 5,000,000-8,000,000 perhaps you win $2 back. This is the basic premise.

Exactly how is card counting a "scam"? They're using mathematics to beat the game, legitimately. One would think that Slashdot readers would appreciate that.

(Also, read "The Eudaemonic Pie", about a shoe device to predict roulette. That one is at least illegal.. though someone on wikipedia claimed that the publication of the book is what got the law passed.)

Card counting isn't a scam, but some of the tricks they used to keep the house from twigging to what they were doing comes pretty close -- disguises, aliases, having lookouts stationed at different tables waiting for a hot deck, at which point they'd signal a team-mate to come over and law down the big bucks.

Card counting isn't a scam, but some of the tricks they used to keep the house from twigging to what they were doing comes pretty close -- disguises, aliases, having lookouts stationed at different tables waiting for a hot deck, at which point they'd signal a team-mate to come over and law down the big bucks.

Except that according to Bringing Down the House, they had been told not to come back to some of the casinos, and were using disguises to avoid being thrown out again. They were tresspassing, which is a criminal act.

But I agree that team blackjack play can't be considered a scam, especially the part about having spotters waiting for a hot deck. If the casino offer

But I agree that team blackjack play can't be considered a scam, especially the part about having spotters waiting for a hot deck. If the casino offers a game where the player has the advantage, a savvy player will take advantage of that. The casino can always change the rules of the game, or choose not to offer it.

And what the infamous book didn't mention is that the casinos figured it out and changed the rules to break it. You're not allowed to sit down in the middle of a shoe, so there is no "team play"

Card counting isn't a scam, but some of the tricks they used to keep the house from twigging to what they were doing comes pretty close -- disguises, aliases, having lookouts stationed at different tables waiting for a hot deck, at which point they'd signal a team-mate to come over and law down the big bucks.

None of that sounds overly disingenuous to me -- all of that sounds like standard teamwork and strategy. The casinos are just upset that someone is outsmarting them, and have enough money themselves to make an issue of it.

I see a remarkable parallel between them and the *AAs, actually. Both are large monolithic companies who make a rather large amount of money with archaic business practices and are reliant on their customers being ignorant. And both of them have epic class A freakouts when someone smar

You still can really. All the bite in the Unlawful Internet Gambling act is about blocking financial companies like MasterCard and Western Union from transferring money around. It doesn't really say much about you, the gambler sitting at the table. Just send them a cashiers check, and they'll do the same. Problem solved.

I see a remarkable parallel between them and the *AAs, actually. Both are large monolithic companies who make a rather large amount of money with archaic business practices and are reliant on their customers being ignorant.

I agree. Casinos and the *AAs would work much better if they were made up of distinct processes that communicated via message passing rather than function calls.

They only did that because the casinos want to make more money and so will throw people out who are playing the game in a way that improves their chances. They have the right to throw them out, but that's why they had to disguise themselves.

It's no such thing. It's simply an offer to bet on an outcome that, just like all the other bets, has a negative expectation of gain. There are bets all over the table that can involve the shooter losing his pass bet: the "boxcars" bet, for example.

They don't let you count cards because, if you're good enough to do it right, it has a positive expectation of gain. If you do it poorly -- which you probably will, and they will know -- they'll treat you like a king.

They had to do that because the casinos will actively inhibit anyone they know is counting cards. They will ask you to leave, even though you're playing by the rules of the game. If you do it too consistently, they'll ban you permanently, despite the fact that you have done nothing wrong.This movie is exactly what casinos want. They want to keep people thinking they're breaking the rules by counting cards, when in fact, it's well within the rules and the only way to actually win consistently.

Not really. It was interesting at one time, but by the time the MIT club was making its rounds, it had been solved for quite some time. The only really unique thing they did was to do it as a quasi-team effort, train as a team, and operate as a MIT club, with a faculty adviser (who was very poor with his advice*) and everything.But more importantly, it really doesn't rise to the level of MIT interesting. The actual practice is just mechanical and rote, after all. There was never a question of whether or

Card counting is waaayyyyy overhyped in terms of effectiveness and profitibility. You (or your teammate if you are sneaky) have to sit there for a long time losing money waiting for a 'hot' shoe. A hot shoe really isnt all that hot either, think 51% in favor of the player. Then you have to bet huge in order to make up for all the time you sat there losing money. Do the math here for just one second, a 1% player advantage is about 10 dollars a hand winnings on average with a thousand dollar bet. In addition to all that hot shoes wont last for very long either, so dont go thinking "hey 10 bucks a hand for a few hours sounds pretty good to me". You will be doing good just to make up for all the hands your teammates spent losing money while you waited for a hot shoe.

Even these famous teams that everyone talks about werent really all that profitable. Sure, millions of dollars may sound like a lot but thats divided up among dozens of team members over the course of several years. It wasnt 5 guys over a few weekends like in the movie 21. Do the division a few times and it quickly becomes apparant that it really isnt worth it even if you discount the fact that you are risking a large sum of money in the endeavor. If you are going to get a lot of dedicated people together and put lots of money at risk you can do a hell of a lot better than playing blackjack.

It may make for good books, movies, etc. but if card counting was really all that effective vegas would be losing money to a brand new team every week. There is a reason everyone isnt doing it and its not because adding one for a face card and subtracting one for a low card requires 1337 math skills.

Also, a reason everyone isn't doing it - is because it's so easy to get detected and blackballed from every casino in town.

After sitting at a table placing small bets for hours, you're going to attract a lot of attention if you start betting big money (because the shoe became 'hot') in hopes of making up for all the hands you spent losing money while you waited for the hot shoe.

Which is why you do it as a team - with counters who bet minimum waiting for the table to become hot, then the big players who come in when signalled and start throwing the big bucks down and playing double spots. Everyone remains consistent.

That may make things slightly more difficult to detect but not a lot. It is a REALLY well known strategy (most people reading slashdot have heard of it and this isnt even a gambling related website). One big player moving tables a lot and throwing down thousands of dollars a hand will attract a lot of attention. It may not be as obvious but its not easy to grind away for the hundreds of hours it takes to come ahead in blackjack without getting caught at it either. Casinos know to watch for it.

"It may not be as obvious but its not easy to grind away for the hundreds of hours it takes to come ahead in blackjack without getting caught at it either."

This is what I don't get. Why do people keep insisting it takes "hundreds of hours" to get ahead or find a hot table?

If you have a 3 deck table, it only takes about 100 cards or so before you know where the cards are, basically. It actually takes a little less than that, but I can't remember for sure so I'm roughing it. So, assuming my numbers are rig

Well yes, if hot shoes came up every half hour and you won 100% of the time when a shoe was hot blackjack would be pretty damn profitable and everyone would be betting 10 thousand dollars a hand.:) But that isnt the case, thats the movie/book fantasyland.1) A hot shoe isnt some automatic thing that will happen as soon as you get more than halfway through the deck. Its actually pretty unlikely to have the cards distributed in that manner. You will need to play a LOT more than 6 rounds to get to it.

Even the most loosely run casino pays reasonable attention to bets of $25 or more (if they didn't they would be out of business). The idea that a high roller can come in and out of games, make big bets (when the real count happens to be highly positive), and avoid detection for more than a couple of days is laughable.

Once a casino has identified a person as a card counter, the person's name and likeness are immediately circulated on something called the Griffin list, which, I am told, has the power to keep people out of most casinos for the rest of their lives.

They weren't there at the beginning by any stretch of the imagination. People have been counting cards for 100 years, and documenting their systems for over 60, at least. Read "beat the dealer" for a more complete history of different systems. By the way, that's the book the MIT guys learned the system from, according to one interview I heard.

These guys just got famous for doing it in a slightly new way and got more famous by writing a book to promote themselves.

You should read Breaking Vegas also by Ben Mezrich. It describes some techniques, that used to work, which exploits the fact that when the dealer shuffles the deck they often inadvertently show the first base player the bottom card - then they ask another player at the table to cut the deck which, with practice, can be done precisely. This places a known card at a specific position in the deck (typically 52 cards in) and by carefully playing the table the team can arrange for the known card to fall on the most opportune hand. For example, if the known card is an ace, the team can arrange for it to land on the hand showing a picture card to make a blackjack.. if the known card is a picture card, the team can arrange for it to land as the dealer's 3rd card, typically busting them.

This doesn't give you a 1% or 2% house edge, like card counting, it gives you a 30% to 60% house edge.

I agree that if done correctly that is possible, but:1) Peeking at cards can get you thrown in jail, unlike card counting. (there is some legalese I dont totally understand about "actively" versus "passively" attempting to view the card, but with what you are suggesting I am pretty sure its considered actively trying to peek at cards)

2) Trying to cut to a certain card X number of cards in is super hard even with practice (believe me, as a practitioner of lame card tricks I have practiced):) and one other

and one other guy at your table hitting/staying at the wrong time can easily throw things off even

And when I used to frequent a local casino playing blackjack (for fun, not really counting, etc), that was my biggest pet peeve: Some jerk at the end of the table saying you screwed him up because you hit/stayed at the wrong time and now he got the wrong card. In a card-counting scenario as you lay out, I can understand how it would be important. But in a casual game with one guy complaining, I often want to tell him to STFU.

that's not real card counting at all. Real counting is simply keeping track of what cards are where and the probability of what's left in the deck. If you know the good hands (considerable skill) by how other players call, you can guess what they have... and guess what's left for you. Along with that, hand shuffled decks after a few hands aren't really random as the cards are collected from winning hands and that cool shuffling by pros is very NOT random if you pay attention. There's no need to "cheat"

I knew a guy at work that would cheat at WAR. He'd goad a few guys into playing, and as he took cards, he'd carefully slip the "power" cards onto the bottom of his stack. Doing this, his power cards were always in a run, and he'd be more likely to take out other players power cards over time. He didn't care how many poor cards he won or lost. He'd win about 80% of the time.

Most Vegas games have house advantages in the 0.5% range. So you lose $0.50 of every $100 bet when using perfect strategy. (They make most of their money on people not using perfect strategy.)

You can do better than a 1% advantage, depending on the rules of the game, and if your buddy spent several hours losing at a 0.5% advantage betting the minimum, you can make up for that pretty fast even at a 1% advantage if you're betting the table limit.

But, it's a lot more complicated than just counting +1 / -1 and then betting more when the count is good, at least if you want to be GOOD at card counting. On top of just betting more, when you have good information about what cards are left, that also changes the 'right' actions in certain situations. For example, some hands that you always hit if you don't know what's in the chute may become hands you double-down instead. Some surrenders become stands. Some stands become hits. And looking at the table of 'perfect' blackjack strategy, the counts at which the 'right' move changes are different for each box. At a trivial level, instead of memorizing that you hit a 12 against a dealer's 3, you'd instead have to know that you hit a 12 against a dealers 3 when the count is less than (Whatever).

The REALLY big problems with making money counting cards are three-fold:

1) Counting cards is hard. So there is a big up-front investment in learning how to do it.

2) You have to bet big. When you bet big, you can still go on runs where you lose a LOT of money. Blackjack isn't a game where you bet $1,000 a hand and win $20 a hand. It's a game where you lose $1,000 a hand, sometimes win $1,000 a hand, occasionally win $2,000 a hand, semi-occasionally lose $2,000 a hand, and rarely win $2,500 a hand. But most hands you lose.

Two consequences of that:

- To make enough money to make it worth your time, especially if you're smart enough to count cards and could presumably put those talents towards a real job, you have to bet big. That means you have to have $1,000 a hand to bet.

- To bet big, you have to have enough of a bankroll that you can play over the long haul. At $1,000 a hand, you probably need $50,000 to have a chance, $100,000 to be reasonably sure, and you could STILL have a bad run and lose all of it, even with a 2-3% advantage.

I sometimes play blackjack on vacation, using perfect strategy, where the house has 0.55% advantage. Even betting $20/hand, my bankroll can swing $1,000 in the short term (over a period of hours). That works out to swings of $50,000 betting $1,000 a hand. Losing $50k is a pretty high risk for the money you're going to win counting cards.

3) If you are betting $1k a hand, and have $100,000, you get a lot of attention, and are not going to be around casinos very long if you keep winning. So you have a big initial investment (learning to count cards well) and a limited time to leverage that investment (until the casino figures out who you are)

Most people would be better off putting their money in a nice mutual fund.

But, soon those new machines that reshuffle the cards every hand will replace chutes and it'll be a moot point.

But, it's a lot more complicated than just counting +1 / -1 and then betting more when the count is good, at least if you want to be GOOD at card counting. On top of just betting more, when you have good information about what cards are left, that also changes the 'right' actions in certain situations. For example, some hands that you always hit if you don't know what's in the chute may become hands you double-down instead. Some surrenders become stands. Some stands become hits. And looking at the table of 'perfect' blackjack strategy, the counts at which the 'right' move changes are different for each box. At a trivial level, instead of memorizing that you hit a 12 against a dealer's 3, you'd instead have to know that you hit a 12 against a dealers 3 when the count is less than (Whatever).

You are correct that you can gain a little bit of an advantage by adding a few more rules to basic strategy but I dont think that this makes it substantially harder. Memorizing that you hit a 12 on a dealers 3 when the count is less than X isnt much more difficult than the base case where you arent counting. Even if you are card counting you should never be doing math beyond basic arithmatic at the table. You dont need to understand all the math

But, soon those new machines that reshuffle the cards every hand will replace chutes and it'll be a moot point.

thats already trivial, and already equivalent to video poker. Any casinos who still want gamblers like me, and my friends, who go to the tables occasionally and basically try to count cards at a $5 table, betting a max of $20 per hand and generally come out within $200 (usually within $50) per gambling evening at the casino. Will always offer decent chances to try and count, and throw out those w

Heh I've always wondered about blackjack - years ago John Carmack of id Software wrote a.plan update about how he went and played at some casino (found this site [xent.com] which includes the copy of his update at the time) - it sounded like he walked in, played for a few hours and won $20k (which he donated to the FSF).

I always remembered that; I don't gamble because I don't know the numbers well enough to feel like I'd be doing anything other than having fun (and I'd rather spend my money 'having fun' at the pub or

That's what the cute girl spotters were for... they'd bet like a regular girl player out to play for fun, and watch for signs that the deck was about to "streak". That cut down the time the really good players would be tied up.

Whatever the effectiveness of card counting, the movie wasn't about card counting so much as it was about "Wonging" (the practice of inviting a big-betting confederate to join the game only when the count is favorable). The casinos no longer allow "mid-shoe entry," i.e. a new player must wait until after a shuffle to enter the game). End of Wonging.

Card counting is also way overhyped in terms of the brilliance of its practitioners. Sure, it takes some insight to come up with the idea of card counting, and somewhat less insight to come up with a new, useful, card counting system. So we're talking about a handful of people in those clubs. And it takes some imagination, if not technical genius, to circumvent the defenses casinos have put in place, handle the logistics, etc., so I'll give someone a little bit of credit for that. The rest of the people

"Craps is pure chance, and the only thing you can do is place bets with the least house advantage, there is no skill whatsoever."

I'd disagree slightly with this. Just knowing how the game is played, odds of various bets and knowing the correct amount you can bet, playing 'right' and 'wrong'(best odds of any game in the house), paying attention to the play(especially after a few drinks, buxom waitresses), staying away from 'sucker' bets, etc., would all count as a certain degree of skill.

I'd disagree slightly with this. Just knowing how the game is played, odds of various bets and knowing the correct amount you can bet, playing 'right' and 'wrong'(best odds of any game in the house), paying attention to the play(especially after a few drinks, buxom waitresses), staying away from 'sucker' bets, etc., would all count as a certain degree of skill.

Ok, I have to agree "skill" was not the correct word - craps is actually my favorite casino game for most of the above reasons.

I was close friends with John Chang's friend and partner in the "MIT blackjack team" during the 1990s. I met Chang in Cambridge, and almost joined the team (I was too busy with programming work I preferred, that also made me pretty rich). This was all before anyone (other than some security firms, and a lot of hookers) had ever heard of the team. I was there for some wild times with some of these actual characters, and was there when they returned from some extreme gambling junkets - some very lucrative, some losers, lots of them extremely exciting.

I heard _Bringing Down the House_ was being written while its author was interviewing my friend and his teammates. I read it, and was very disappointed in both the shabby writing style, and its omission of some of my favorite stories from those days. Maybe the team kept some of it quiet in self-defense, but those were much better stories than made it into the book. I asked my friend what he thought of the movie now that it's out, but he confirmed what I expected: even lamer than the book.

There was only one other blackjack team in the world at the time that was as consistently in the money, and it wasn't at MIT - or even from the US, as far as I knew - according to the team that I knew, which was as inside as anyone could get. Maybe this other Boston guy was a player. But MIT isn't that big a place, and there wasn't some other team. Certainly not one that so closely resembled the one that showed up in the book, and now the movie.

Except that Kaplan was not part of the events that make the story worth telling, the events that Spacey's character portrays. By the time that the team was recruiting from MIT students not already connected to the team, Kaplan wasn't part of the action.There were plenty of people connected to the team who I didn't know. I wasn't there when it was started, or even for the majority of its adventures. But I knew it well enough to know that Kaplan wasn't the model for Spacey's character, or any other interestin

Interesting.I know an MIT blackjack player who was "on the team" and I heard about it when he was actually doing it (and the world at large had no idea about it) and he was making craploads of money on summer vacation. He's making bucketfuls now in the financial world. I can't say I heard this guy's name, but then again, I never heard any names.

The story is worthy of a better treatment (fiction or non-fiction) than it's gotten, for a variety of reasons that seem sort of obvious to me: lack of true sleaze fa

My friend from the team has an extremely interesting story, of which the MIT team is only a part (though the one with the most fireworks for the screen). But I think he'd rather be rich than famous, and there is good reason to believe they'd have to choose one or the other;).

What's funny is that one of the team's central members spent their college years as a funloving anarchist. And some of the other counters I know are much more "socialist" (actual socialists) than I am.Wait, no, the really funny thing is that I blew off the chance to join the team because I was too busy making money with my SW development corporation. My main customers were banks and giant publishing companies, as well as state/provincial/federal governments, global telecom corps... Like, I wore a suit and s

No, you can't even keep it together enough to make sense from one post to another. You claimed I couldn't know the team because one person on it you claim you know is a corporate fascist. So I explained that someone I know on the team was a college anarchist. The point is that your possibly imaginary friend's fascism doesn't mean that my real friend's anarchism didn't exclude them from being on the team. They both wanted to make money counting cards, which is why they were happy to be on the team. Their pol

Well, I have to say that with this post you've lost any credibility you may have had. So what if you're rich? Big fucking deal. If you're so confident about your story about knowing the MIT Black Jack guys stop bringing up the fact that you are rich, and just let the post live on its own. Your terrible defenses only destroy your credibility.

But I already know what your response to this will be- that you're richer than me. Well, maybe you are. I don't really care.

I appreciate your attempt to help, but I don't think it's for me.I didn't actually mention that I know someone famous - they're not. The Spacey character is fictional (though plausible from the facts), as is the character in the book. And I didn't mention that I'm well educated - I met Chang in Cambridge while visiting my friend, and didn't imply otherwise.

I am rich, and pretty "brilliant", and I have plenty of friends. My way sure worked well to pick up girls, and what I said is all true. Now why should I

That doesnt prove discrimination. It could be (and probably is in my view) the case that richer families are able to do a better job of raising their children and giving them a good education as the grow up. In this case MIT wouldnt be discriminating, they would just be taking the best students available to them. Unless you consider accepting the best qualified students to be discriminatory.And no, I didnt go to MIT and I grew up in a family that was in the "poor" 75%. (if you can call under 60k poor, Am

As one of the players profiled in BDTH, I can say with authority that Bill Kaplan is definitively NOT the basis for the Mickey Rosa character in the book nor the character that Mr. Spacey plays on screen.

While I will not comment on any of the rest of Mr. Kaplan's claims, I will say that, following the release of the book, and especially given the success of the movie, there have been several people who may or may not have been active card players at that time that have come out to falsely claim that the book is about them.

Lest you suspect I may be one of them, I will point out that I was the one who submitted the original WIRED story [slashdot.org] to slashdot several years ago.

I started MIT in 1979 and people often ask whether I knew anybody on the blackjack team. I answer not to my knowledge, although I was certainly aware that people were doing this.Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think card counting wasn't exactly a closely held secret. I knew at least one guy who used to practice in one of the lounges, and was happy to explain various counting systems, some of which were easy enough for somebody who was not interested in spending hours on end memory training to master. Co

Several years ago, right before the book can out, Wired Magazine (which we all know and love) featured a great story/ interview about "Kevin Lewis" (his name was changed in the article) and his story about being one of the MIT kids. It's a pretty good read, probably better than the movie. Follow the link below for the article.

MIT professors Ed Thorpe [wikipedia.org] (later of UCI) and Claude Shannon [wikipedia.org] were developing blackjack strategies. Talk about shoulders of giants... Shannon of course is the famed father of information theory. Besides blackjack, these guys figured out how to gain an edge in roulette using some tricky electronics. Thorpe later made a fortune by founding one of the original hedge funds (this book [amazon.com] is a fascinating account).

What some people probably don't realize as much is that Vegas is the wrong place to try all this, and probably Atlantic City. Hit up the Louisiana-Mississippi casinos, bet small, and don't go to the same place several times in a row. My understanding is that their systems are less sophisticated and dealers not as bright...so you won't get caught and can make more money.
Cheaper to live down here, by the way.

Once again, everyone:1. Card counting is NOT hard, nor does it take ANY math skill or special memorization ability. It does take practice to do effectively, but the whole MIT brainiac angle is 100% marketing for a book/movie.

2. Blackjack teams have been around for decades, running on exactly the same strategies as the folks from MIT *mimicked*. The MIT team DID NOTHING ORIGINAL. It's marketing, folks.

3. In the best of cases, card counting MIGHT sway your odds to about 1% favor, so it takes a LONG time

There really isn't a real equivalent from the source material 21 used. No, I'm not talking about some blackjack book. I'm talking about the real source material: Risky Business [wikipedia.org]. That's where 21 got almost all of its plot material. They just made a few substitutions like hookers were replaced with gambling and Joey Pants was replaced with Cowboy Curtis and Princeton was replaced with Harvard Med. Wherever they didn't already have some plot worked out, they'd throw in a little MIT card counting stuff fro